3 Reasons Mainers Should Rejoice the New Lobster Emoji

On Wednesday, Senator Angus King took to Twitter to announce that our favorite crustacean will be coming to our phones soon from The Unicode Consortium (which I just learned was a thing. Like the emoji gods?):

This is obviously good news for everyone, but especially Mainers - for three distinct reasons:

1) Maine lobstermen will finally get the representation they've deserved for years.

According to CNBC, more than 80% of lobster in the US is caught in Maine. 'Nuff said - it's about time our hard-working lobstermen joined the ranks of emoji fame. Perhaps the next emoji release will be the fisherman himself!

2) Maine lobsters are arguably the most badass of sea insects.

Growing as heavy as 40 pounds and as long as 3 feet, Maine lobsters top the charts for beefy sea life. Known for their unusual anatomy, their brains are housed in their throats, their nervous systems in their abdomen, teeth in their stomachs and kidneys in their heads. They listen with their legs and taste with their feet, for God's sake. What other sea insects are built like that?! To top it all off, lobsters turn cannibalistic when crowded in tight quarters, which is why sellers tightly band their claws to prevent them from feasting on their neighbors. If these prehistoric critters don't deserve their own emoji, I don't know what does.

2) Lobster education is of utmost importance

Mainers' rite of passage is learning how to eat a whole lobster. I learned from my boyfriend's grandma, a ship-builder's wife in Boothbay Harbor. But before you learn how to crack into these bad boys, you gotta be able to recognize them. Without this long-awaited lobster emoji, the only way to communicate about the highly regarded sea bug was to dance around the topic with these impostors...